The Primitive Art Instinct

Author(s): Marion Bauer

Source: The Musical Quarterly , Apr., 1923, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Apr., 1923), pp. 157-166
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/738313

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The Musical Quarterly

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THE MUSICAL QUARTERLY
VOL. IX APRIL, 1923 NO. 2

THE PRIMITIVE ART INSTINCT

By MARION BAUER

W E have a vast, immeasurable past at our backs-a past

crowding us on to an enigmatic future; a past glorious
in great attainment and rampant with fearful defeats
and failures. We are but the unfolding of seeds of this past, which
have lain dormant for centuries, or have developed gradually step
by step. Civilizations have risen and have been swept aside,
each like the deposits of the soil adding strata on strata until we
stand to-day "an acme of things accomplished, an encloser of
things to be." (Walt Whitman-"Song of Myself.")
Our art is a great structure, as colossal as our mechanical
development, our scientific attainments, or our political institu-
tions, and it has followed practically the same line as these in
having passed from unsophistication to sophistication, from spon-
taneity to artificiality, from ignorance to intellectuality, from the
mystical to the scientific; yet we are building machinery that
might fall by its own weight, and upon which the future alone can
pronounce final judgment. The present civilization may even-
tually disintegrate to give way to a new one that must again com-
plete a cycle starting from the primitive state, but with the cumu-
lative consciousness of the past to drive it forward.
We speak lightly of the decline of civilization, without con-
sidering that decay and renewal are constantly with us. There
has never been a period when civilization has been on one level,
because, in every age, all stages from the primitive to the decadent
are represented. The difference between culture and savagery is
often geographical, not necessarily chronological; thus it is pos-
sible for the Bushman of Australia to exist in the same world that
has produced the most learned Oxford professor. Perhaps the
tribe of Bushmen will become extinct before it has the chance to
157

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158 The Musical Quarterly

attain a high degree of culture, or perhaps culture w

upon it through propinquity; however, the Oxford pr
from stock that was once as primitive as the Bushm
chance and circumstance that developed the Brito
evolutionary process so vast that our imaginations
follow the grinding of the Mills of the Gods?
This curious overlapping of eras has enabled us to
primitive at first hand, to fill in the archaeological
recognize traits and characteristics common to ear
periods. Certain tendencies are so universal that th
accepted as instincts. Thus there has always been a st
consciousness-an awareness, sometimes conscious, but m
unconscious, of an attempt at, or a desire for, art-ex
analyze the art-instinct or impulse, one must go back
civilization has been recorded, to an age when there we
of thought, no written language, no science, no history,
tion was the only guide, and all phenomena were m
in the man of that stage there is visible the need for s
-a natural instinct for reproduction. This instinct
not only in the reproduction of species, but in the ap
of the human to reproduce his thoughts and feelings,
inner necessity. It is Bergson's "elan vital" (creativ
the physical plane, and of the mental, emotional,
as well.
The cave-dweller has an encounter with a wild animal; he
returns to his mates and, in trying to give them a graphic descrip-
tion of his experience, picks up a piece of charred wood and draws
a picture of his deed;-this was self-expression-crude, primitive,
unconscious Art. Warriors return victorious from battle, and
enact the scene repeatedly for the women, children, and old
men of the tribe. This same type gave vent to savage joys and
griefs in bodily motions-the forerunner of the dance-and accom-
panied these dances with rhythmic noises-the forerunner of music.
The savage shouts and grunts by which they expressed emotions
antedated speech, and were the forerunners of song, which has been
the natural means of musical expression for the masses, and the true
source of musical development from the primitive through the folk-
period to the democratic community singing of the present day.
There was little more than mere physical reaction in these
demonstrations, nothing that could be called Art as we have
known it for centuries; still, the germ was there, and every simple
germ as it develops and propagates, becomes a complicated
product. The crude drawings and pantomimes became the means

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 The Primitive Art-Instinct 159

of telling stories, of reliving experiences; through

tion, the pantomime took on the nature of a sym
or the battle; these dances became religious pet
enacted before the event, partaking the character
or of prayer; they symbolized the things desired
foe, rain from heaven, success in courtship, or
The people decorated themselves and their implem
of agriculture (when they had arrived at a period
for these occasions; thus a sense of beauty was bor
or perhaps a desire for beauty was satisfied-cer
sense it, but Beauty in a wild, barbaric fashion th
instinct that has existed since human beings appe
Certain instincts, such as self-preservation, re
species, care of the young, etc., the human has in
animals. The animal has certain reasoning facul
of intercommunication, and there are many who i
with a soul; but may we not assume that Man sep
animal and uses purely human faculties when t
awakened? We do not know how far animals m
but we do know that Man alone translates it th
and intellectual channels into definite forms which we call Art.
"Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man
consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others
feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected
by these feelings and also experience them." (Tolstoy: "What is
Art?") Even with birds that apparently have spontaneous song,
the activity is instinctive and varies with the species, while man's
means of communication, whether it be language, art, mechanics,
or mathematics, is arbitrary and is capable of tremendous develop-
ment. Before man had reached the stage of articulate speech he
used, as do the animals, natural expressions of gesture, grimace and
tone; and to this day we indicate feeling by natural expression.
"It is where expression quits its emotional natural basis, and turns
to intellectual uses, that the history of language begins. . . . It is
the desire of communication that turns the instinctive into the
intentional. . . . Man possesses, as one of his most marked and
distinctive characteristics, various faculties and capacities which
lead inevitably to the production of speech: but the faculties are
one thing, and their elaborated products are another and very
different one. In all these various exercises of our activities alike,
the race has been undergoing almost from the beginning a train-
ing of its capacities, step by step, each step being embodied in a
product. The growth of Art implies a period of rude shapings,

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 160 The Musical Quarterly

and a rise to higher and higher production by improv

models and processes. And every new individual o
to go through the same series of steps, from the
beginnings. Only, he takes them at lightning-speed
with their first elaboration; because he is led onwar
over a beaten and smoothed track." ("The Life and
Language," by William Dwight Whitney.) Thus A
institution, and depends on the community for its
this does not mean that the artist of to-day needs t
of individuals in order to produce works of art, bec
experience has many channels, but there is no do
would have been no need for self-expression, had oth
not called it out by the challenge of their presen
difference of opinion that must have existed even
itive lovers thought the only decent way to win a m
fight for her.
Art is not a garment to be thrown on and off at will, neither
is it mere recreation for idle moments, but it is an instinct in the
human race, akin to man's reaching-out for an explanation of the
phenomena of religion, science, and philosophy. Contemplation in
which the Intellect is reflected through Emotion leads to Art.
This is the natural result of the primitive instinct of imitative and
emotional expression, which in turn is the outcome of superstition,
fear, and desire. Art of to-day is as far removed from this
primitive instinct as the superdreadnought and the great cannon
are from the sling and stone or the battle club; but love of beauty
is as natural as the instinct for self-preservation, and is doubt-
less as necessary.
Through evolution man has gradually adopted a process of
elimination and absorption that has made of him scientist and
philosopher. He has learned to search for causes behind phe-
nomena, and through painful experiments, heart-breaking fail-
ures, and patient recommencements, has found the general law
behind certain reactions of similar character; and with each dis-
covery, he readjusts his previous knowledge and refits old effects
to a wider generalization and so goes on eternally, always uncovering
more and more of Nature's truths, and fitting himself into his
environment with an adaptability that is startling! And it has
been instinct-the wee small voice within-that has urged him
ever on and on through the interminable march of civilization,
that has made him hunger and thirst for knowledge, for power,
and for being! His path has been marked by progress, degrada-
tion, survival, destruction, revival and modification.

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 The Primitive Art-Instinct 161

How can we even picture the terror of prim

face of terrific storm, of devastating disease,
winter and the drought of summer, of failure
results of his own uncontrollable nature? He h
no experience from which to draw his conclusi
is a macrocosmic child, and to his slowly awa
world is a chaotic mass of impressions; to e
nomenon he attaches a personal cause, and in
animate or inanimate with a soul, or at least with human attri-
butes of good and evil. An arrow that has missed the mark is
discarded as having an evil spirit; a chief or a great warrior who
dies loses neither power nor influence, so that he must have food
and drink, and wives and slaves who must die with him. He was
the centre of their ceremonies during his lifetime, and remains
so after his death. A statue is made in his likeness and is colored
after the fashion of the primitive combination of sculpture and
painting; stories are narrated of his deeds, and are accompanied
with dancing and singing, and here has been constructed an
elaborate system of ancestor worship calling into play each one of
the arts. Another example of the development of primitive rite
is the spring festival typifying birth and death, or death and re-
birth; it is common to many peoples of different ages and localities,
as may be proven by comparing the festivals of Dionysus with the
English May-pole dance. One can easily understand that in the
early stages of civilization when food was difficult to obtain and
life precarious, primeval man attached all kinds of superstitions
to the coming of Spring, and sacrifices were made and ceremonies
observed; Rostand has given us a splendid parallel in Chantecleer's
unquestioning belief that it was his morning hymn that brought the
sunrise each day.

For the origins of Art we must look into two separate char-
acteristics of Man; one, his talent for mimicry, which was Nature's
means of instructing him; the other, his emotions, which act as
stimuli for expression along different lines of which Art, with its
numerous branches, is an outlet. Man's instinct for play has
been an important source of Art's development. We must not
forget that for one who is emotionally articulate, there are many
unable to express in tangible form, but who have an appreciation
to a greater or less degree of the artist's representations. Since
man first became conscious of self, there has been the artist who

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162 The Musical Quarterly

stood as interpreter between Nature, the "Soul of

his fellow beings. He was not called "artist," perh
unaware of his estate, but he stood apart by reason o
to interpret-as priest, medicine man, dancer, ora
rhythmic beater of bones, painter, or maker of imag
Art to the artist is more than mere play or pasti
artist must have his audience, and a large proporti
audience may express a play instinct in its appreciati
thing in the creation of which it has no share.
Like language, music is taken up "from the world
the world of sense." Gesture, the basis of natural
pending on the mimetic faculty, is also the basis of th
oratory, and while there may be no intentional conne
the emotion and its bodily expression, we have learne
thought through experience taught us by the associa
and we give to dancing an interpretative significance
originally, and lost through having made an appea
element in man.
It is impossible to put one's finger on the spot where uncon-
scious art becomes self-conscious. This is true not only of the
change from the savage state to the civilized, but the same condi-
tion exists between the natural artist and the cultivated. There
are many who suppose that all art production is the result of pure
inspiration and rises from the waves like Aphrodite, fully matured.
In fact, one often hears that poets need no training, that all
poetry "just comes to them," and that studying robs them of
spontaneity and originality; that musical composition cannot be
taught, as one either can or cannot compose. This of course
shows a lack of understanding of creative talent, and an ignorance
of its psychology. True it is, there are many flashes of the artistic
creative impulse that are obliterated by the strong light of knowl-
edge, like a vein of ore separated from the lode. Talent must be
accompanied by character, will, intellect and emotion before it can
be made a significant vehicle of interpretation; in order for Inspi-
ration to be given absolute freedom, it must not be hampered by
incomplete technical equipment,-the rock which has wrecked so
many promising talents. Doubtless, in the primitive state self-
expression was so spontaneous that it had assumed definite form
and individuality before a realization of art was established.
Whatever it may have been-expression of fear, joy or sorrow, the
desire for amusement, or the celebration of religious rites-man
was unconscious of the art element and was merely obeying an
impulse; but with the development of the human race, with the

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 The Primitive Art-Instinct 163

realization of intellectual evolution, came a s

that has led it far beyond the confines of seeking
imitation, or of being an emotional safety-valv
This craving for beauty, for "self-celebratio
for re-presentation, for giving rein to the imag
tion to a Higher Cause, for emotional expression
sound, using color, tone, dance, action, carved
as a medium, is the ART IMPULSE.

Primitive man's first realization outside of self-preservation,

sustenance and reproduction was Nature, out of which grew his
concepts of Religion and Art. Without going into a discussion of
the origin of Nature and Religion, one can safely say that there
could be no Nature without a Cause behind it, and in this appli-
cation, Religion is man's apprehension of the Cause behind
Nature, and is his celebration in rites and ceremonies of his recog-
nition of a Force greater than and outside of himself. The cor-
relation of these three primal concepts could be expressed in the
terms of a triangle-

Nature
Nature

Nature has influenced Religion and Art; Religion has influenc

Man's understanding of Nature and has been the cause of muc
Art creation; Art has deveolped Man's love of Nature, as Natu
has developed Man's appreciation of Art; and Art has symbolized
Religion and has brought it home to mankind during all the earl
centuries of its development not only in the rites of primiti
peoples, but in the wonderful schools of Italian painting in whic
the Biblical allegories have been represented, in the building
the magnificent Cathedrals of Medieval Europe, in the productio
of the inspiring Miracle plays, and in the impetus given to musi
through the works of the early composers for the Church, includ
ing Palestrina, Orlando Lassus, and Bach.
Benedetto Croce, the great Italian .Esthetician, shows tha
the correlation between Nature and Art endures to the presen

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164 The Musical Quarterly

day by stating that "Nature is beautiful only for him

plates her with the eye of the artist," and again, "N
is simply a stimulus to aesthetic reproduction."
Art as an imitation of Nature is a premise on
schools of philosophy have been built. These Imit
way later to the Expressionists, who held and demon
theory that Art is expression, using Nature as a mea
sion, that is, Nature seen through the eyes and trans
medium of the artist. The next step has been to r
effect of Nature upon the artist eliminating the cau
effect, and we have the present day Post-Impressioni
Futurists, Cubists, etc., etc.
Religion seems to have been left out of the moder
Art, but if we consider the problem of the aesthetician,
the Good, the Beautiful-we find that modern religio
to live it, while Art expresses it intuitively.
Until sensation had become experience; experien
edge; and knowledge, science, it was not congruous t
art-impulse should have been explained: science was
one of the primal concepts. As soon as Art took on d
and differentiation, when it became incidental instead of acci-
dental, when will was added to impulse in its production, there
must have been the first aestheticians to inquire into causes and to
follow up the artist to explain the reason for his instinctive ex-
pression. The problem of the aesthetician is never solved; each
generation creates a philosophy of art with the trend of art, and
it is a great question whether vesthetics influence art, or vice versa.
Perhaps the only satisfactory solution is that both the vesthetician
and the artist are productions of their day-the victims, as it
were, of the period in which they live-for they reflect their envi-
ronment and also each other. Art empirically conceived must
be justified and explained; on the other hand the most eccentric
radicalism has developed out of the past, and is called into being
by existing conditions. Is it theory and practice, or practice and
its justification?
* *

We never really
its relation to the
enough away from
theories were false, or at least faulty. When Science shall have
told us what Life is, perhaps it will also be able to define Art. In

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 The Primitive Art-Instinct 165

the meantime we must admit that it is one o

creation. We explain what it does and how it does it, how to
recognize it, we put a valuation upon it, manufacture it, buy it,
sell it, love it, hate it, but what it is defies finality.
The effort is often made to return to Primitive Art; indeed, the
painting of to-day shows strong tendencies in that direction, but
one must question the advisability of such a move, for we are far
too sophisticated to be able to reienter the consciousness of the
savage, consequently our work is not the direct outcome of inspi-
ration, but degenerates into a state of mind that is not sincerely
experienced. However, a work of art often makes one feel that its
creator-composer, painter, sculptor, poet or dramatist-was in a
state closely resembling that of the barbarian when the work was
conceived. "Art, poetry, intuition, and immediate expression are
the moment of barbarity and of ingenuousness, which perpetually
recur in the life of the spirit; they are youth, that is, not chrono-
logical but ideal" (Benedetto Croce, essay on "Pure Intuition and
the Lyrical Character of Art"). This barbaric impulse, which
culture tends to deaden, accounts for the work of a composer like
Leo Ornstein, whose "Wild Men's Dance" is primitive, rhythmic-
ally stirring, and does not make one feel that it is the result of
evolution, but rather a reversion to type, like a wild branch
appearing on a tree of grafted fruit. There is certainly in his music
an elemental strength that lashes with its fury, fascinating and re-
pelling at the same time. He has all the modern means at his
command, but basically his is a savage soul breaking into the
language most familiar; it is self-expression in its elemental form.
A musician recently related an experience that would seem to
show Igor Strawinsky, the Russian composer, as a barbaric soul.
He heard a piano score of Strawinsky's Ballet, "Sacre du Prin-
temps": the name indicates that the composer went back to prim-
itive times for a subject. The music sounded very queer and ex-
treme, but in one part the listener had the mad desire to roll on
the floor, and said that it took considerable self-control to
restrain himself. A short time later he saw a performance of
"Sacre du Printemps" and at the very point where he had expe-
rienced the sharp physical reaction, he was amazed to see the
entire ballet rolling in the stage grass! Strawinsky had certainly
caught the pagan spirit which he reproduced in his music and
transmitted to, at least, one of his listeners.
It is not in a spirit of pessimism that one questions the sta-
bility of our present civilization, but rather with a feeling of the
inevitableness of evolutionary processes which bring before us the

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166 The Musical Quarterly

continuance of Life, and as long as there is human lif

Art, not necessarily judged from present-day standa
IMPULSE and ART INSTINCT, which will always act as a
barometer of the spiritual life of a race. "In spiritual life we recog-
nize a new development of the universe in which it unfolds a depth
and gathers itself together to form a world-life. To participate in
spiritual life means, therefore, to participate in a world-life . . .
This spiritual life, and not mere man or the separate individual,
is the basis of thought and of all aspiration towards knowledge.
. . . Without Art there is is no thorough spiritualisation of life. If
we lack its formative and ennobling activity, even the most
eager and rapid advance will not be able to preserve life from
barbarism." ("Main Currents of Modern Thought," by Rudolf
Eucken.)
Just as civilization encloses self-destructive principles, so Art,
its reflection, contains in its essence the reason for its develop-
ment and the cause of its downfall. If an art movement fails to
outlive its own age it is because the outer shell of decadence wa
stronger than the undercurrent of health and normality. T
inherent creative force of the idea was lost in mannerism. But it
is the inherent creative force that has carried Art from its prim
itive state to its present condition-and it is the inherent creativ
force which makes it impossible for Art to disappear from the fa
of the earth.

There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage,

If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, were
this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in
the long run,
We should surely bring up again where we now stand,
And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.
(WALT WHITMAN: "Song of Myself.")

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